Aspire in the World Fellows Book - 2023

/94 9TH ASPIRE ACADEMY GLOBAL SUMMIT Let’s get back to youmaking themove froma player to a coach. You’re still a young coach at fifty. That movement, youmade it straight away, literally finished playing and straight into coaching. First, I have to say I was a really bad player. I just started to think to be coach at 27 or 28 and until there I never thought about that possibility, but in that moment, I had a coach who inspired me a lot and I start to think in the training and in the game with a different perspective. I start to study, to learn, to take my license and when I was 32, I wasn’t motivated to continue to play but I was motivated to start to be a coach and I had this opportunity at 32 to start with the Under-19. Did you have a clear vision immediately? Howdid you start to coach and have you stuck tothat?Ordiditchange asyougrewolder andhadmore experience? I had some ideas. We think when we are playing and we had this motivation, we are prepared to start immediately to coach, but is very different and to become the head of the process is a different reality and I wasn’t really prepared. I wasn’t because reality is different, but step by step I started to buildmy concepts, my ideas, and if you ask me if I have the same ideas and if I’m the same coach as when I started, I’m not, I’m a totally different coach with different ideas. When you said the realitywas very different, what was that biggest change towhat you were expecting? When you are a player, you just think of yourself and when I become a coach, you have to think of everything. I started with the under 19 when you should be not just a coach, you should be the father, the driver, the kitman because I started in a club with difficulties and to be responsible for everything is not an easy step. Howwould you go about that? Simone Inzaghi was one of our guests yesterday. He talked verymuch about the individual approach. It is not easy and leadership is one of the biggest challenges of the coach, to manage the players, to deal with different personalities and with different cultures. I think it’s oneof the main points today, in our profession, you have to know the players, you have to know the life of the players, we have to know everything about the players, the right conditions to improve the player, because if you improve the player, we improve the team.